


Autotomy

by amadridlover



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Childhood Friends, Danger, F/M, Love, Protection, Survival, football au, reunited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 22:32:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5108033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amadridlover/pseuds/amadridlover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>autotomy<br/>/ɔːˈtɒtəmi/<br/>noun, ZOOLOGY<br/>-- the casting off of a part of the body (e.g. the tail of a lizard) by an animal under threat.</p>
<p>(It’s in those long nights, when she’s all alone in her dark and silent room that she allows herself to think of him.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Autotomy

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Wislawa Szymborska's poem about a sea-cucumber.

It’s in those long nights, when she’s all alone in her dark and silent room that she allows herself to think of him. It’s during those early hours of the new day that she imagines his eyes, his strong jawline, his warm hands, his sweet smile. She misses him and is hurting. Hurting because she knows he is hurting, and she wishes she could help him. But there’s nothing she can do.

 

It had been years since she had last spoken to him. They had been friends in their childhood, their families being close and they used to spend almost every day together, traversing around their busy neighbourhood, laughing, playing and just enjoying each other’s company.

 

When she moved to Seville with her parents they had lost almost all contact with each other, her mother’s illness taking up the better part of her teen years. She was relieved those days were over, although her mother had never been the same since. Still, the aged-before-her-time woman was here, alive and happy, and that made her daughter happy.

               

Soon she started university and it was all go, go, go. No time for family and holidays and fun and definitely no time for old childhood friends. She missed him, she had finally admitted that to herself, despite how stupid it sounded. God, she hadn’t seen him in so long. She didn’t even know him, did she? But deep down inside she knew he was the same, that he hadn’t changed, and that’s perhaps what hurt the most. The knowledge of what could have been had she stayed in Madrid.

 

_

 

Watching him on the news was a sort of unconventional torture. That’s why she had to let him go, but did she ever really? He was the country’s hero, not only a talented footballer but humble, well-spoken, kind and handsome. He was every mother’s dream son.

“Remember Iker?” her mother would ask her, as if she didn’t think about him every day, as if he didn’t haunt her dreams, as if he wasn’t a world away from her own. “You and he used to be such good friends, and look at him now,” she would say, not knowing how her words cut like knives, not knowing her daughter still cared about him.

 

_

 

The ever-flashing lights were not unfamiliar to him. He smiles at them, feigning confidence, happiness, wanting to scream that he cannot do this anymore. He is not who they think he is. He is not the strong, infallible hero they take him to be. He is just Iker. He blinks quickly in succession, trying to avoid making a fool of himself in public when an image hits his retinas, forcing him to a halt. He thinks it is her but he can’t be sure a) because she’s walking hurriedly across the street, not even looking his way and b) because he hasn’t seen her since they were twelve, but the way his heart is beating unevenly and his sudden lack of breath both hint towards the affirmative.

 

“Excuse me,” he mutters to the cameras, pushing past them gently and running after the retreating figure. They don’t follow, but continue snapping away, curious but somewhat lazy in their pursuit.  

 

“Sara!” he yells, and people around him stop and stare. Iker ignores their looks of amusement, disapproval and in some cases, recognition. He quickens his pace, she’s so close. He sees her wave and for a second he thinks it’s at him – she remembers him – but a taxi soon pulls over and she enters. “Sara, wait!” Iker calls out, the desperation clear in his voice as the vehicle merges with the oncoming traffic, getting further and further away; taking her further and further away, again.

 

_

 

He can’t sleep, tossing one way then another. His room is suffocating and he wants to scream, run, leave but he has nowhere to go. It was her, he was positive of it now. But why? Why was she there? What was she doing in Madrid? He shivers slightly as it brings back memories. Memories of a little boy, running after another taxi, hot tears leaving traces down his face as he chases his best friend, begging her to stay even though he knows it is not her choice, just like it isn’t his. They were only children. And yet, that little boy, that twelve-year-old Iker had vowed to himself that he would find her. One day they would meet again.

 

As he entered his teens, Iker stopped thinking of Sara in that way. He was nearly a man now, and part of the youth team at Real Madrid. He had more immediate worries to concern himself with. He didn’t want to think about her, or about unmade promises. They only made him feel like a failure. He forced himself to live, breathe and speak football, and the more he progressed through the ranks, the stronger he felt as a person. Sara had just become a painful memory of his past, one he consciously avoided thinking about. Protect yourself, his body screamed. His heart shuddered at the thought.

 

Perhaps somewhere, deep down inside, Iker knew that he still felt he owed her. He owed it to himself. Perhaps it was this unmade vow that had kept her so close to his heart despite the years that had passed. He knew it wasn’t normal. It wasn’t normal to care so much about someone he knew nothing about. And despite his mental efforts to forget her, to ignore her existence, his stubborn heart told him otherwise.

 

_

 

_He’s in his front yard, throwing his football in the air and catching it again, up and down, up and down, when suddenly he mishits it, and it goes flying, landing on the street. Just as Iker is about to jump over the fence to collect it he sees a girl, picking it up for him. She approaches him with a smile, and she looks familiar._

_“Sara?” he asks, unsure. Her smile only widens._

_“It’s okay, Iker,” she tells him. “I came back for you.”_

_Iker’s eyes narrow in confusion and somewhere within him he knows that’s not the way the story should go. After all, it’s his promise, and he should be the one to find her, not the opposite way around. All of a sudden, the girl’s smile is gone and she starts to cry. Iker grabs her hand desperately, trying to comfort her but the little girl has disappeared, and he is standing alone in the front yard, his ball still on the street. Iker looks left and right but she is gone. An old man suddenly stands before him, a sorrowful expression on his face. And Iker knows he is looking at himself._

_The old man shakes his head sadly but says nothing. No words of comfort or direction, but Iker can feel his loss._

Sometimes it hurts more to protect yourself.

 

_

 

Loving him is not something that comes easily. Rather, just like when she writes for her blog and she has to wrestle with words to ensure they fit just right, she has to fight an uphill battle of never-ending doubt, frustration, hurt, confusion. It goes against nature and yet, she struggles with it.

She is tired of it all, tired of looking up at every mention of his name, feeling his pain at every criticism. She is no angel, why does she feel like he is hers to protect? It should be the other way around, and certainly, for people that don’t know him, it must seem that way. Many eyes see him as a saint, as a wall that refuses to crumble, a long-lasting knight guarding the ever vulnerable fortress.

The air in her lungs burns, as she feels her heart beat strangely. She is sweating slightly and the room is spinning. She gulps for air, forcing herself to sit down before she stumbles. It has been a while since her last attack. She doesn’t know that he gets them too. She curses him and calls out for him, alternating between her two needs: to hate him and to love him. She takes deep breaths, in and out, in and out, waiting for her body to stop trembling. Anxiety attacks were what her doctor had told her she was suffering from, but she knows better. She is enduring a broken world, one that she has failed to piece back together from her childhood. Two parts of a whole, separated because nature knows best.

When she closes her eyes she sees the boy he was. A passionate little thing, always putting his heart into everything he did. She has a memory of him, as he is lining up for one of his football matches, back with the under 12s team. While the other boys are chatting excitedly, or fighting amongst themselves, he is squinting slightly at the sun, a hand blocking out the glare. Iker removes his hand, and his lips are in an exaggerated pout. She knows he is thinking hard, feeling the responsibility seep through his veins. He was always meant to be captain, she knew. From that day on the field, as he worried his lips into a little pout, his pale brow puckering slightly, she knew he would be something great. He would lead others.

She sighs. She longs for those days, for their past together. She longs to speak to him, to hold him, to know that he hasn’t forgotten her.

But these are just wishful thoughts now, ex-realities.

 

_

 

He sees her blog, well, an advertisement for it anyway. It’s funny really, because he doesn’t ever read women’s magazines but he is sitting patiently at the hospital, waiting to receive his results from a recent examination and – there she is.

It takes him a little while to realise that she must be a journalist, and what’s more – his heart skips a beat – a sports journalist.

He carefully tears out the page with her face staring back at him, and folds it neatly, placing it in his back pocket.

One Sara, found and accounted for.

 

_

 

It takes a few calls and a couple of emails to some of his “friends” in the media until Iker is provided with a phone number.

The multi-digit number, written messily in black sharpie, stands out in offending contrast to the bleached, white notepad and reminds Iker of her skin. Caramel to his sickly white. It always amused Iker as a boy, because really, it should have been the opposite. He was always the one playing outside and she was always inside, getting lost in her books and the world of fantasy.

He dials the number carefully; triple-checking he hasn’t made a mistake.

One ring.

He is breathing loudly, but he can’t help it.

Two rings.

The clock ticking in his lounge room is making him uncomfortable, giving everything an unwanted finality.

Three rings.

Four rings.

“Hello?”

Iker is greeted with her voice, so familiar and yet achingly different. He wipes his hand on his jeans nervously, fingers moving along the side seem in agitation. He can’t think of what to say. What does one say to someone they love but haven’t seen for ten years?

“Hi.”

Iker waits in agonizing silence for her to say something back. Does she know his voice? Does she remember him and what they were to each other?

“Iker,” she says softly, his name on her lips carrying more meaning than any one name deserves to carry, and it is all he needs to hear because he knows. Through his name in that voice he _knows_ that she understands him as both the boy he was and the man he has become. She _knows_ what he is feeling.

In that moment Iker feels strangely complete, any danger is gone.

She has come back for him, but more importantly, he has come back for her.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are welcomed and very much appreciated :)


End file.
